33. "i feel like his best album may still be to come" In response to In response to 27
>Might even be his best album. Definitely the most consistent >since at least F&L, The Cool. Finally got rid of the bad hooks >that often plague his releases, lyricism as sharp as ever, and >jazzy production has always worked really well for him. Real >happy with this album
I just revisited T&Y and Drogas Wave over the weekend --- they are *so* thoughtful and ambitious but also *so* bloated in their production and their length. Verse for verse, Lupe is better than ever, and conceptually both as albums and individual songs contributing to the albums, they're just on another level. And even the audacity of making these much longer-than-usual songs *and making them work* just floors me.
But it's hard to deny that they're just too long and the ideas and overall effect suffer because of it. I've come around on some of the production choices I've previously given the side eye to but even at that some production and hook choices are just ... yeah.
I think what I like about this album is that it uses concision to his benefit. It's not that he's abandoned the longer song format (that last cut is brutally good). He hasn't abandoned all his production quirks. But it's brought together here in a more chiseled shape that genuinely works.
That said, I'm not sure if this album has the highs for me that Tetsuo or Drogas Wave do. We'll see --- my opinion on those albums still changes by the day and I've been listening to them since their release, lol